8 



MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



MICHIGAN 



ROADS AND FORESTS 



Official Paper of The Michigan Road Makers Association and 

 Michigan forestry Association. 



70 Larned Street West, Detroit, Michigan. 



Entered ai Second-class Matter April 27, 1907. at the Post Office at De- 

 troit. Michigan, under the Act of Congress of March J, 1879. 



Frank E. Carter Editor 



PUBLISHED EVERY MONTH 



BY 

 THB STATB REVIEW PUBLISHING CO.. 



SUBSCRIPTION. ONE DOLLAR A YEAR, 



P4VAIH.E IN ADVANCE:. 



WE LEAD IN ALL BUT GOOD ROADS. 



Years ago our forefathers fought their way 

 through nature's domain and overcame the virgin 

 forests, laying the foundation for this great 

 country we rule today. Because their days were 

 long and the work hard, blazed trails or wood 

 roads were sufficient for their time and needs. 



Pressed with their spirit of progress we have 

 gone on expanding, developing all but completing 

 a work so well begun. 



We have tied the oceans together with a knot 

 of steel, paralleled the Great Father of Waters 

 with railroads which carry every season commo- 

 dities whose value would astonish even Solomon 

 in all his glory, tilled our fertile plains and made 

 even the desert to blossom as the rose. 



Co-operating with nature's secret forces- we 

 wrested from her, power to turn night into day 

 and drive the machinery of a thousand factories. 



In short we actually proclaim ourselves today 

 the rulers of water, earth and air, but what of 

 the blazed trail, the cart path, the wagon road 

 which answered well enough for a handful of 

 pioneers. 



If we are honest we have to confess that the 

 roads we travel up hill and down through shift- 

 ing sand or heavy clay are very little improved 

 since the first blow was struck to make men rulers 

 of nature's wilderness. 



Thousands of dollars to increase crops, millions 

 for railroads to distribute our produce arid a few 

 cents now and then for improving roads this pro- 

 duce is hauled over. 



There is a hopeful sign, however, in the chain 

 of good roads slowly but surely stretching across 

 this country from ocean to ocean and from the 

 Gulf to the Great Lakes. 



Listen, and you may hear the voters north, 

 south, east and west striking blow on blow to 

 forge their chain and by their votes furnishing 

 funds to make it continuous. 



Surely the voters of Michigan will not be satis- 

 fied until this great state takes her proper place 

 in the front rank as to mileage of modern im- 

 proved roads. 



COMPROMISE ON WAYNE COUNTY 

 ROAD PLANS. 



The officers of the Detroit Board of Com- 

 merce and the Wayne County Road Commission 

 who have been at loggerheads over the proposi- 

 tion advocated by the former of bonding the 

 county for $2,000,000 for good roads, have 

 reached an agreement. After a lengthy session 

 with the Board of Commerce men, Chairman 

 Haggerty of the road commission gave out the 

 following statement: 



"The board is not opposed to the bonding 



proposition, so long as it does not interfere with 

 the one-half mill appropriation which we have 

 asked for, but was averse to taking any stand 

 or action which would interfere with the granting 

 of the one-half mill tax." 



The 'present road tax is one-third mill, or a:; 

 1-3 cents on $1,000. The one-half mill tax will 

 raise the rate up to 50 cents on $1,000. The 

 road commissioners argued that they must have 

 the appropriation, to carry on their work next 

 year, and that if the bonding issue alone carried, 

 and no provision was made for the regular tax, 

 good roads work in Wayne county would be at a 

 standstill for at least a year, before the bond 

 issue was finally negotiated. 



If the county raises $2,000,000 in bonds, the 

 commissioners are of the opinion that they will 

 be able to work continuously for five years on the 

 bond money. 



"We are elated over the outcome of the dis- 

 cussion, and find that the country road commis- 

 sioners and the members of the board ot com- 

 merce were not so tar apart alter all," said 

 President Larned. 



1 he question of approving the bond issue will 

 come beiore the voters on Nov. 8. A rousing 

 campaign is being conducted to keep interest in 

 the question stirred up, and the Board of Com- 

 merce believes the people will vote overwhelm- 

 ingly for good roads. 



GOOD ROADS CONTAGIOUS. 



'I he good roads movement has been contagious 

 all over Michigan, and in Western Michigan, par- 

 ticularly, the development of truit culture and 

 agriculture has shown the necessity of improved 

 thoroughlares. In times past, when good roads 

 were mentioned to the farmer, some of the less 

 progressive opposed better roads, one reason be- 

 ing advanced that they did not propose to con- 

 trioute to the pleasure 01 automouiusts. 1 his 

 seiuiment is rapiuly being dissipated, however, 

 more especially since very many larmers today 

 are driving automobiles ot their own. 



NEW YORK HAS NEW FOREST 

 COMMitiSlOiNiiR. 



James S. Whipple, State Forest, Fish and 

 Game Commissioner of New York state, and his 

 special counsel, trank D. Bell,; John K. Ward, 

 chief of counsel; John H. Inman, examiner ot 

 Adirondack land titles for Mr. Whipple and the 

 State .Forest Preserve Land Purchasing Board, 

 resigned their offices following the report filed 

 with Gov. Hughes by Roger P. Clark of Bing- 

 hamton and District Attorney H. Leroy Austin 

 of Greene county, appointed last F'ebruary to 

 look into Mr. Whipple's administration of his 

 department and to inquire into the purchase of 

 Adirondack lands by the State Forest Preserve 

 Land Purchasing Board. 



The report severely condemned the adminis- 

 tration of Mr. Whipple's office. In presenting 

 his resignation Mr. Whipple said : 



"This is not the time to discuss either the facts 

 or the conclusions set up in the report, but I do 

 emphatically deny the truth of the facts stated 

 and disagree from the conclusions reached. I 

 recognize, however, that as a result of this re- 

 port my usefulness to the State in this depart- 

 ment has been destroyed." 



II. LcRoy Austin was appointed to succeed 

 Mr. Whipple. He was a member of the inves- 

 tigating committee. 



EXAMINATIONS FOR FORESTRY 

 SERVICE. 



Notification of a change in the time of hold- 

 ing the civil service examinations for senior 

 forestry students at the Michigan Agricultural 

 College who wish to become forest assistants 

 was received recently by Prof. J. Fred Baker, 

 head of the forestry department at M. A. C. 

 Hereafter the exam will be held the first Wed- 

 nesday in March instead of in April. The- 

 change was made because it was impossible for 

 the civil service commission and the forest serv- 

 ice to notify the students of. the outcome of the 

 exam until after school was out in the spring. 

 Hereafter, the students will probably receive no- 

 tification before the close of college. The exam 

 to be taken by the present large senior class will 

 come March 2. Twenty-two students, the largest 

 senior class in forestry in the history of the 

 state college, will probably take the exam. 



All of the forestry students who received prac- 

 tical experience on the western national forests 

 this summer have now returned and the technical 

 work of the year is well under way. 



RESEEDING BURNED FORESTS. 



A new industry -has sprung up in South 

 Dakota growing out of the recent great forest 

 fires. Almost before the ashes of the fires 

 which raged over the Black Hills, destroying 

 thousands of acres of primeval pine forests, 

 have grown cold, the government rangers and 

 foresters are preparing to reseed the blackened 

 mountain sides and repair the damage done by 

 the flames to the great watershed of the con- 

 tinent. Already arrangements are being made 

 for gathering 250,000 bushels of pine cones for 

 use as seed, and at the proper season these seed 

 will be strewn from one end of the burned-over 

 section 'to the other. In the Black Hills alone 

 more than a thousand square miles of pine for- 

 ests have been destroyed, and before the falling 

 snow puts an end to further fires as much more 

 may be burned over. 



A bushel of pine cones is worth more than 

 bushel of potatoes. The Black Hills are gr 

 producers of Irish potatoes, and the selling pr 

 is 60 cents a bushel. But a bushel of good pil 

 cones will bring 75 cents when delivered at 

 one of the half dozen receiving stations wh 

 the government has established. 



The gathering of pine cones has become 

 industry in itself, and the forest rangers 

 encouraging men, women and children to 

 bark therein. The cones must be carefu 

 picked and sorted as seeds infested with ins 

 or otherwise damaged will not be accepted. 



The government is advertising for an unlin 

 ited number of pine cones, delivery to be ma 

 at Deadwood, Newcastle, Keystone, Hill Cil 

 Custer and a number of other places. 



FAVORS CONVICT LABOR. 



Gov. Fred M. Warner, of Michigan, 

 inspected the state highways built by con\ 

 labor in Colorado, has declared himself 

 favor of giving the system a trial in Michigan 

 Colorado has been doing extensive road build- 

 ing with convict labor, the convicts living 

 in camps along the highways in course of con- 

 struction. 



State Highway Commissioner Ely, in a re- 

 port to Gov. Warner for the state industria 

 commission, urges the use of the convicts ai 

 the Marquette prison in quarrying trap ro 

 t'ur use in the construction of good roa 

 throughout the state. He appended to 

 rcpi rt a blueprint, showing the location of 

 extensive quarry of trap rock near the prise 

 and a letter from the owners stating the sta 

 may have the rock for 5 cents a ton for 

 rock shipped and the taxes on the proper!) 

 leased to the state. 



